Was dishonest and lived heartlessly (4)
I believe the answer is:
lied
'was dishonest' is the definition.
(lying is being dishonest)
'lived heartlessly' is the wordplay.
'heartlessly' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'lived' with its middle taken out is 'LIED'.
'and' is the link.
(Other definitions for lied that I've seen before include "Idle (anag.)" , "Art song - told porkies" , "German art song" , "Told an untruth" , "Produced pork pie" .)